‘It needs a flight of fancy to make a good picture turn bad’. That was my thought when I saw my little nephew ripping out cartoon stickers from his album. Then I started to ruin some pop culture icons by reshaping them into a digital collage. That’s how the series How I Destroy A Mith come about.

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I’m a fan of art that has an edge, some bite, maybe some blinding colour, or just blows my mind when looking at it for the first time. Therefore, my trip to check out Newcastle Art Gallery’s Modern Masterpieces exhibition was with some trepidation – would I like the ‘old’ stuff? Some hour and a half later, I came away deeply impressed by the range and quality of work. In particular, the works of William Dobell, a local to the area, were visually stunning. Accordingly, the portrait of Margaret Olley by Dobell (Archibald Prize winner in 1948) is probably the most important piece; vibrant, stunning and magnificent. The exhibition runs until March 4.

Lisa Nilsson’s Tissue Series consists of anatomical cross-sections made from Japanese mulberry paper and the gilded edges of old books.

Joanna Mortreux, a Melbourne-based artist, has created the series The Awkwardness of Living and Dying Simultaneously, where monumental figures sit like cryogenically frozen specimens of either some ancient past or some frozen future. Like artefacts in a museum, they exist as landmarks or even portals to another space or imagined time. All inspired by the crazy cold beauty of Iceland.

Minneapolis-based Brock Davis doesn’t eat junk food when he sees it, he makes sculptures out of it. So far he has splayed a gummy bear to make a bearskin rug, built a tree house out of broccoli, cast a Dark Side of the Moon with dorito chips, and made the Stonehenge out of rice krispies. There seems no end to the man’s insanity.

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Taking the idea of an ‘inflated ego’ to the next level, Takashi Murakami created this 20-foot-tall inflatable self-portrait for his solo show, Murakami-Ego, in Doha, Qatar.

Haniedan, aka Hanneke Treffers, hails from Amsterdam and specialises in collage art. Her amazing cut up techniques blend pulp imagery from the 1950s with paint, typography and almost anything she can get her hands on. The work has a beautifully vintage finish and meshes meticulous detail with contemporary aesthetics.

Adam Dix’s new print from Jealous Gallery makes my mouth water. It’s an 11 colour screen print, that in itself is pretty impressive. On top of that Dix’s creates a strange universe where 50′s nostalgia and anthropology mix with modern technology, all in dreamy pastel colours.

Lisa Fernald Barker beautifully translates her memory of place with thick, impasto brushstrokes while imbuing the images with rich, saturated colors, lending an understanding of how her impressions of place vibrantly resonate in her memory, and in our present.

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Gale Hart, a Northern California artist, creates intense characters and colour in her paintings to tell her visual story. Graffiti and stencil elements blend and blur with drawing and painting techniques, creating an image far greater than its parts.

Robotgeisha represents artwork from the past few years living in Brighton on the South coast of England. It focuses on three dimensional bronze and plastic work, along with some painting. More recently, the work has veered towards a kind of three dimensional collage, incorporating plastic toys and PVC figures.

I usually start by scuIpting from scratch then introduce objects of interest that can be rethought or recycled into something new and expressive. I have many influences: robots, sex and machinery all seem to feature heavily, as do literature, children’s nursery rhymes and fairy tales. The Robot Geisha figures are a kind of Darwinian nightmare from the future and look at man’s obsession with beauty and technology. Music has also been inspirational. My latest painting is a direct result of listening to the Swedish band Fever Ray. You can see my work at The Signal Gallery, London and The Ink_d Gallery, Brighton.

In this video, Mick Burson paints a wall in Denton, Texas, that was inspired by the slums in Brazil. With no sketch, just a level, and a big paint budget, he was able to knock it out in a big three day weekend and make it to work on time Sunday night.

I love the brashness of this ongoing series, Poupée Barbie, by French artist Jocelyn Grivaud, created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the doll that (most) every girl grew up with. Grivaud has pulled stills from iconic movies, paintings and photos, casting Barbie as the star in a statement about her seemingly timeless relevance.

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Mark Jacques is a very inspirational guy hes originally from Ohio and is currently residing in Oregon.Hes young with a huge body of cohesive work. He uses the titles to explain his abstract work, and has a great color sense.

Esteban Longoria, an Oakland-based artist, has created something terribly monstrous in his paintings. Some of his oil paintings are inhabited by a reincarnated luchador with his masked dog. In others, we see him taking a victory lap giving us the thumbs up, a close up of a powdery werewolf, and the sighting of bear with troubles.

Edith Lebeau grew up in Beloeil, a little town in Quebec, Canada. She paints women in the guise of superheroes, villains, goddesses and nymphs. Her work is emotive, showing the strength of modern woman and their underlying vulnerability.

Process drives Nathan Cordero’s artwork. Found objects are morphed into complex and striking wood mosaics; words and images are painted, cut, carved and reassembled into stunning artworks. The interplay between large and small scale keeps you looking and enjoying each fresh piece.

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I like where Sacramento artist Trent Liddicoat is and I look forward to him incorporating more layers of complexity to his stories and painting. It’s like finishing a good book, you want the next one. Bringing a sense of order to this somewhat chaotic outer world, delicate and vibrant geometrics interact with the stains that have flowed across each piece.

Northern Californian Rogelio Manzo’s translucent images see through the people he creates. Brushstrokes show ghostly movement while the paint simultaneously disfigures the images. Each layer, like years in time, leaves an indelible mark on the visage of that persona. This layering and slow, meaty disintegration, speaks to a commonality of humankind. The images are futuristic yet past tense and conjure a modern day Dorian Gray. We are given a glimpse of the future. In it, an undeniable beauty of the decay.

Anthropomorphic Animals are at home in the watercolor and ink artwork of Northern California artist, Amy Green. Carefully carved from their environments, they are viewed like the biology lab specimens that have inspired her since her youth. Her love of topographical maps is evident by the deft use of ink that defines the edges and inner workings of her beasts. Luckily she’s willing to share what a nature walk in her mind looks like with the rest of us.